The more I think of it, the more what you're saying sounds like you think your time is more valuable than your mother's. You can't take 2 minutes to return a call (since you saw it was her) or listen to a voicemail, but you expect her to drop everything to get in contact with you multiple times in order to be able to talk to you.

Additionally, you're not going to bother to get in contact with her unless it's important enough that she has to call you more than once - that's kind of devaluing her, too.

I don't think you can dictate how others use their phones. You are more than entitled not to use your VM. You're more than entitled not to call her back. But, I think you should examine what message you're leaving for her when you do things like this.

In normal circumstances perhaps I would agree but this doesn't match the situation. The OP said she was at a week-long conference (not to mention other responsibilities) and was so busy that most of her personal commitments were neglected. I can see how it would be easy to unconsciously put off calling her mom back; especially if she's only available at odd times (12-hour days) and voicemail retrieval is unreliable with her phone. Unless the OP is in the regular habit of ignoring voicemails for weeks on end then I just see this as a one-off.

I hate voicemail too, and the only person who uses it is my dad. I always just call him back (generally within a day or so) but rarely listen to his messages. that's because his messages tend to be really rambly and always essentially say 'call me when you get a chance'. That's the precedent established. so I can understand the OP doing this if that's the precedent she established. If her mom's not happy about that, they can discuss changing the precedent.

I hate voicemail too, and the only person who uses it is my dad. I always just call him back (generally within a day or so) but rarely listen to his messages. that's because his messages tend to be really rambly and always essentially say 'call me when you get a chance'. That's the precedent established. so I can understand the OP doing this if that's the precedent she established. If her mom's not happy about that, they can discuss changing the precedent.

Maybe that's how LadyL should view this issue then.

Her mother, to me, is clearly indicating that her having to call LadyL multiple times if she hopes to hear from her within a week is not working for her.

You have options when you're setting up voicemail. Therefore, you're in control. You can either:

1. Not set up voicemail -- This lets everyone know that you don't communicate via voicemail.2. Set up voicemail, with a message that says something like "I don't check messages often, so please send me a text or email if it's urgent." -- This lets everyone know that voicemails are for routine matters and anything with a deadline should go through another medium.3. Set up voicemail, with the usual message of "This is X, please leave a message!" -- This lets everyone know that it's acceptable to communicate with you via voicemail.

If you choose Option 3, then you are rude if you're expecting people to contact you in a different way for urgent matters. You're telling them one thing and then expecting them to read your mind and do something different. It's easy enough to take one of the other options and clearly let everyone know what to expect. (There's also the option of "Don't leave a message, I'll just call you back when I see the missed call." I hate leaving a detailed message as instructed and then having someone immediately call me back without listening to it and making me repeat everything.)

The OP's first post says she normally checks her voicemail every few days. It sounds as though she and her mom normally speak once a week, but waiting that long to check a message was a one-off.

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How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these. -George Washington Carver

I agree with most answers, but I also think this is just a communication fail. With someone like your mother, it seems to me prevention is the best cure. In other words, "Mom, since you don't use text/email and I don't like voice mail, what system should we use to differentiate between a "how are you" communication vs "I have something urgent to pass on"?

It could be something as simple as two quick calls in a row.

I just thing with a mom or close family member you'd want to do this rather than go trial by error.

The thing is, in etiquette terms, even a "how are you?" call should be returned. In the old days, letters were to be answered, and relatively promptly.

It's incredibly hurtful to hear that your call just to say "how are you? I care about you and would like to hear news of you" is *not* important enough to be returned.

To me, the "call twice, letting it ring only twice each time" is what you have for *emergencies*, not for simple "call me back."

I think it kind of does, actually. I mean, no one gets to dictate how another feels, but I personally think that if you didn't try your reasonable-to-the-situation* best to get what you want, you shouldn't be upset about not getting it. "Oh, I really wanted that job and I applied, but I didn't follow up with the questionnaire like they asked and now I'm really upset I didn't get the job." I would think about that person, "Well, what did you expect? You must not have really wanted that job if you weren't willing to send in the questionnaire. Frankly, I think it's silly and immature that you're upset. You didn't do your part but expected to get the job anyway."

*Obviously, what you think is reasonable and what I think is reasonable is different. I think 2 messages is reasonable while 1 is not. Anyone is likely to miss one message, but the likelihood of missing 2 is less. I may even send more if it is that important to me.

I don't think that's at *all* analagous!

The OP's mother is not a potential employer to be wooed. She's the OP *existing social contact*. (I won't even play the "she's her *mother*!" card, but Miss Manners sure would. In most people's worlds, mothers deserve a little bit more consideration.)

I think that the people we already know, who have reason to think they are valuable to us, have every right to be offended if our attempts at communication have been ignored.

Oh, sure, from a practical point of view, if you want something you should keep after it--but that still doesn't mean you don't have a right, Etiquette-ly speaking, to be offended and ticked off that someone has ignored your attempts at communication.

Returning someone's attempts at communication is Etiquette 101, I think (when that "someone" is someone you already know).

If the OP has clearly indicated to her mother that a certain method of communication does not work, then she is immunized. But she'd better turn off her voicemail completely then! Her answer would need to be, "I didn't even realize you'd left me a voicemail--I never check it at all."

And technology can completely fix this, as long as the OP's mom will use a new phone number:

Quote

If you use Google Voice's voicemail transcription service, Google may transcribe voicemail messages into text and email and/or SMS the resulting text to the email account or phone number(s) designated in your user settings.

I don't think it's analogous, either, and never said I did. I was providing an example of not going after something you want and then complaining about it when you could have done more, that's all.

The OP did return the attempt at communication, just too late for her mother's preference. That isn't the OP's fault, she didn't know it was urgent because no one told her it was, especially because she is known to not check her voicemail constantly. Her mom set her up for failure then got upset about it. If the mom didn't want to be upset about it, she should have done something about it instead of setting her daughter up for failure.

I think this is uncharitable. The precedent set by my mother is that the once a week calls and messages are just to check in and chat, and I usually return them up to a week later. In other circumstances, like when she is confirming specific plans, we will often talk 2-3 times in advance of the plans to confirm details. Multiple attempts at contact are my usual signal that it's not a status quo phone call to say hello. She didn't do that this time, so I didn't have my usual clue that there was something time sensitive she needed info on. I'm sorry if I wasn't clearer on this point. I do take full responsibility for not checking the message and am not mad at missing the dinner - honestly after such a crazy week and still having stomach issues the day it happened, I probably would have declined anyhow. My question was more about whether her expectations were reasonable or if there was etiquette of returning calls based on voice mail that I had violated, necessitating an apology.

I would certainly hope that if someone was in the hospital or there was another kind of emergency, I would get more than one call about it if they didn't reach me the first time. If it were me, and I had any sort of important info to convey, I would call repeatedly until I made contact or received a reply. I realize that others feel differently and there's probably no right or wrong, but this is just how I tend to approach things.

Perhaps it's a precedent that your mother is no longer willing to play along with.

If your mom knew you were at the seminar she may not have wanted to disturb you repeatedly. I do think you owe her an apology. But I would have assumed that once you picked up the message and reliazed you had missed responding to an invitation that you gave her a call saying "Oh, gosh Mom. I just got the message about dinner Sunday. So sorry I missed the invite and the dinner. I hope you guys had a good time."

The OP did return the attempt at communication, just too late for her mother's preference. That isn't the OP's fault, she didn't know it was urgent because no one told her it was, especially because she is known to not check her voicemail constantly. Her mom set her up for failure then got upset about it. If the mom didn't want to be upset about it, she should have done something about it instead of setting her daughter up for failure.

No, I think the OP set herself up for failure.

I'm just having a hard time accepting the idea that the mom is rude for being hurt that her DD couldn't be bothered to listen to a voicemail message from her own mother.

I think the OP (and my DD) needs to establish a form of communication that works. And if she doesn't want to hurt her mother's feelings or make her mad, she needs to pay some attention to those messages.

The OP did return the attempt at communication, just too late for her mother's preference. That isn't the OP's fault, she didn't know it was urgent because no one told her it was, especially because she is known to not check her voicemail constantly. Her mom set her up for failure then got upset about it. If the mom didn't want to be upset about it, she should have done something about it instead of setting her daughter up for failure.

No, I think the OP set herself up for failure.

I'm just having a hard time accepting the idea that the mom is rude for being hurt that her DD couldn't be bothered to listen to a voicemail message from her own mother.

I think the OP (and my DD) needs to establish a form of communication that works. And if she doesn't want to hurt her mother's feelings or make her mad, she needs to pay some attention to those messages.

I don't know where or at what time I said any of that. I don't think her mom is rude for having hurt feelings; I think that she could have avoided having her feelings hurt by being more proactive about getting what she wanted. It's not that the OP couldn't be bothered, it's that she had a lot of other stuff going on and because voice mail isn't her communication style, she opted to wait to listen to it.

If your DD forgot to respond to just one e-mail in what you consider to be the right time frame regardless of what she considers the right time frame, you would think she's incredibly rude? I think that's completely unreasonable. Not everyone has the same standards. We can accept the other person's standards or we can keep upsetting ourselves, which is exactly what I think the mom did.

I think it's a reasonable expectation that if someone has a messaging system in place, that they will check it and return calls.

There are very few people who would not get aggravated that they left a message and did not get a response. They feel ignored -- no one's going to be doing the happy dance over being ignored. Once someone's feelings are hurt, they are far less likely to keep trying to get a response from the person who's ignoring them -- it's somewhat like a dog dancing and doing tricks to get its owner to give them a pet on the head. No one wants to be the dancing dog.

Your callers should not have to hunt you down to get a response to a message they left on YOUR messaging system-- that seems self-absorbed in that you're making them dance around to find you.

I'd say that if you're not going to check your voice mail regularly and return calls promptly, then disable that function. If you're not able to disable that function, then change your message to say, "I never check my voice mail, so don't bother to leave a message."

It is kind of rude to not check your vm regularly, imo. I would suggest you change your outgoing message to something like "Hi, This is LadyL's cell phone. Please feel free to leave a message, however, be aware that I only check my messages once or twice per week. If it is important that you reach me quickly, please text/email/whatever for a quicker response."

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